A federal judge on Thursday ordered the deposition of former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit brought by two former FBI employees who are seeking redress for what they say is unfair retaliation against them for having investigated alleged ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, reports The Hill.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson decided that FBI Director Christopher Wray also must sit for a deposition by attorneys for the pair, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were among a group of FBI employees who exchanged text messages critical of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The messages were made public by GOP figures to discredit the probe. The pair was having an extramarital affair.
President Joe Biden can invoke privilege to block testimony on certain topics not specified in Jackson's order but has a March 24 deadline to do so.
Jackson said the ruling did not "resolve any questions related to either the presidential communications prong or the deliberative process prong of the executive privilege."
Strzok, a former FBI agent who is seeking reinstatement and back pay, alleges that the decision to fire him "was the result of unrelenting pressure from President Trump and his political allies in Congress and the media," including a campaign consisting of "constant tweets and other disparaging statements by the president, as well as direct appeals from the President to then-Attorney General Jefferson Sessions" and Wray.
The pair also allege the FBI and the Department of Justice violated the privacy act by making their texts public despite lack of public interest.
Page, a former senior FBI lawyer, is seeking financial damages to recoup losses to her earning capacity, attorney's fees, and child care costs, as well as the "cost of therapy to cope with unwanted national media exposure and harassment."
Sordid history
Former FBI counterespionage Chief Strzok and former bureau attorney Page have long been the subjects of regular attacks by Trump since 2017, on the heels of revelations they'd exchanged anti-Trump texts while employed by the bureau and linked romantically.
The ex-president has contended their shared concerns about him helped compromise the bureau's probe of alleged Russian meddling in that election.
Strzok was removed from the Russia probe by then special counsel Robert Mueller, and fired in 2018.
The pair filed separate civil suits in 2019 against the Justice Department and the FBI, with Strzok claiming he'd been axed "because of his protected political speech" and pressure from Trump in violation of his constitutional rights.
For her part, Page, who quit the bureau in 2018, alleged that the DOJ had breached the Privacy Act by "unlawfully disclosing agency records" when it shared her texts with the news media.
Information from Reuters, Newsmax and other media outlets was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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